


A Case of the Mondays

by tricksterquinn



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterquinn/pseuds/tricksterquinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which spells go awry, Howl does ALL THE THINGS, and the whole town seems to have come down with the flu. Fortunately, Sophie is on top of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Case of the Mondays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butterflysteve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflysteve/gifts).



> This takes place between Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Air, and contains no spoilers for the latter.  
> Acknowledgments at the end.

  
**In Which Domestic Spells Begin to Fail**   


On Wednesday morning, Sophie woke up alone. One of Howl's two pillows had been pushed to the floor. The other still carried the imprint of his head.

"Strange," Sophie said, and got up. In the bathroom, Sophie stepped on Howl's pajamas on the way to the sink and sniffed. It was entirely too early for clothes on the floor.

Downstairs, she asked Calcifer if he had seen Howl.

Calcifer stretched and crackled. "Yeah - he headed out to see the King bright and early. Said he'd be back later."

"Hm," Sophie said and fried up some breakfast, feeding the eggshells to Calcifer.

*** 

She swept the main room and got out the buckets, changed into boots and pulled a shawl around her shoulders before turning the knob above the door to purple-down and slogging out into the misty morning to gather flowers for the day, gardening tools floating obediently along behind her.

She clipped her way down the rows of flowers, scooping fertilizer from Howl’s enchanted bucket as she worked. At the end of one row, her ladle scraped the bottom of the bucket, empty.

“That’s odd,” Sophie told the bucket. “You’re not supposed to run out.”

The bucket’s handle moved apologetically, but it didn’t refill.

“Are you tired?” she asked it, and made a note to ask Howl to renew the spell.

When she moved into the shop, the wooden counter was cold to the touch. It was not very inviting, so she put her most cheerful flowers in tubs in the front of the shop to brighten the day, and plopped the rest in a sink to soak while she selected ribbons and tissue to match the blooms she picked this morning. As she began assembling bouquets, the bell above her door rang to admit her first customer.

"Good morning," Sophie called, and Louisa Thorn from two streets over said sheepishly, "I need an 'I broke it, please forgive me,’ present."

"Daisies," Sophie said. "Cheerful, endearing, and humble." She gave Louisa Thorn a look. "Above all, humble."

*** 

By lunchtime, Sophie still had not seen any sign of Howl. She sighed, and pretended she hadn't missed him distracting her from honest work. She flipped the sign over to 'closed' and locked the door. When she crossed back over into the castle, she found Michael sitting at the table, chewing on the end of a pencil.

"Sophie! Do you have any idea about, uh," he checked the paper before him and gave up, pushing it towards her, “...triangles?”

Sophie leaned over his shoulder to see, pulling off the fingerless gloves she wore in the shop to stay warm. “I’ll take a look over lunch, but put it away for now and set the table."

While Michael was clearing away his work, Sophie went upstairs to put on a warmer sweater and stopped just inside the door. Howl’s window, which usually showed Wales, was wandering, streaming a kaleidoscope of different images into the room at dizzying speed. As she watched, it paused for a long moment on a cottage next to a lake, then focused in on a leaf that dripped rain onto the surface of the lake, then on one rain droplet itself. Sophie coughed. The picture jumped, and returned to Wales.

“Howl,” Sophie said. “What are you up to?” The window gave no response. Sophie decided that recalcitrant windows did not deserve encouragement, and picked up her sweater from her chest of drawers without further comment.

She walked back downstairs, where Michael was looking hungry, and fetched a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese and set briskly to grilling sandwiches. She fed one to Calcifer, who gobbled it greedily, and then set down the platter of sandwiches in the middle of the table.

"All right," she said. "Let's see that puzzle."

When Howl came in through the main door, they had their heads together over a page as Sophie pointed and Michael scrawled. Howl tromped across the space to sit down heavily on the end of one bench and Sophie passed him the platter of sandwiches without looking.

"You're helping my apprentice cheat on his homework again, I see," Howl said conversationally. Sophie looked up at him quickly, startled at the abstracted tone to his voice. He was nibbling on the corner of a sandwich and looked nowhere in particular. Her brow furrowed.

"Howl, are you all right?" She paused. "You look… distracted."

Howl's green eyes snapped into focus on her. "Oh, sorry, my dearest Sophie. I was just… thinking." He waved a hand. "I met with the King and Ben this morning."

"Ah," Sophie nodded. "About the war?"

"Mmm." Howl dug into the sandwiches, looking more properly focused now. "Michael, what seems to be the trouble?"

"Well…" Michael launched into an explanation, much more technical than he'd given Sophie, and Howl nodded along, shifting closer to look at the papers they've been drawing diagrams all over. He laid a hand on Sophie's back and she smiled down at the table for a moment before getting up to clear it. She gave Howl’s discarded scraps of crust to Calcifer, who consumed them with a crackle. She tidied up the kitchen and paused as she started to head back to the shop.

"Howl," she waited until he looked up, "the fertilizer spell is acting up. The bucket’s empty. I don’t know how you had it rigged. Can you take a look, please?"

Howl nodded absently and she turned back, satisfied, to reopen the shop.

*** 

At the end of the day, Sophie closed up shop after selling one last bouquet to a desperate aspiring beau, along with a simple charm to make his desired lady consider the merits of his suit.

"This is not a love charm," she said firmly as she handed him the bundle. "It will not coerce her affection. We do not hold with love charms around here."

"Yes, yes, of course!" the young man enthused, clearly not hearing a word. "I am most in your debt, Madam Sorceress!"

Sophie rolled her eyes and locked the door behind him, taking off her apron and folding it with a sigh.

*** 

Calcifer was feeling chatty that evening, and kept up a running commentary on the weather (lousy), the state of their chimney (drafty), and what he thought of the war Ingary was gearing up for (stupid) while she cooked. Sophie laughed along as she chopped vegetables. After a while, Michael came in with a box from Cesari's and a kiss on the cheek from Martha.

"Can I borrow the seven-league boots? She and I were thinking of going to a play in Porthaven…" He shifted somewhat nervously.

"I don't see why not," Sophie shrugged. "Howl's been complaining that they're getting a bit worn with all the back and forth to Kingsbury he's doing, but I'm sure it'll be fine."

She dug them out of the closet. In the time between when Howl had presumably put them back after his meeting with the King that morning and now they had somehow migrated behind one of the great shape-shifting cloaks. One had acquired a selection of garden tools that stuck out of it like it was a vase. She dumped the trowels and clippers back into the bucket where they belonged and set the boots down on the floor.

"Now, boots," she addressed them firmly, "go easy on Michael and Martha this evening. You're to get them to Porthaven and back with no trouble. None at all."

One of the boots waggled slightly, sadly, but she looked at it sternly and it subsided.

"Thanks, Sophie!" Michael enthused as he shoved the box onto the table and picked them up. "Do you mind if I skip dinner to get going? We can find something there, I'm sure."

"Not at all." Sophie smiled. "Go have fun."

Howl burst in just before Michael could leave, accompanied by a few swirling eddies of snow. He stomped his boots on the floor just inside the door, and Sophie looked at him narrowly until he took them off and put them on the mat she'd left there for just that purpose.

"Hi Howl!" Michael inched around him, coat half-on and seven-league boots still in hand. "I'm off to Porthaven for dinner with Martha I'll be back later bye!" he said all in a rush and was out the door.

Howl blinked.

Sophie handed him a towel for his damp hair. "They're going to see a play," she supplied.

"Ah," said Howl, still looking a bit startled.

"There's chicken pie just about done," Sophie said.

Howl smiled and kissed her on the cheek. "Fantastic - warm home, warm fire, warm food, warm wife; what more could a man ask for?"

"Excuse me, sir, hands," she warned and went to rescue the pie before it burned.

Calcifer crackled in amusement. "Don't stop on my account!"

Sophie batted at him absently with the spatula.

*** 

Howl was quiet through dinner; usually he could be counted on to provide much of the conversation, but tonight Sophie told stories about customers in the shop, punctuated by Calcifer's commentary. Howl, meanwhile, barely touched his food, though he did push it around the plate a bit.

"Is something wrong with the pie?" Sophie finally asked, concerned.

"Oh, no," Howl looked sheepish. "Sorry. It's delicious. I'm just more chilly than hungry." He smiled and made a point of taking a respectable bite. She patted his shoulder.

"It is getting to be awfully cold out there, isn't it?" she commiserated.

Howl nodded and sneezed. He muffled his nose in his elbow.

"Bless you!" said Sophie.

"Blessing are always appreciated," replied Howl.

"Pass the salt," said Sophie.

*** 

After dinner, they sat and discussed his meeting with the King. He explained the project he and Ben were working on, while Sophie listened intently and made comments and suggestions from time to time. Sophie roasted chestnuts and passed them back and forth with Howl where they sat on the bench before the fire, tossing her shells and a few whole ones to Calcifer.

She sent Howl off to bed early, after the third time he lost a thought mid-sentence. He yawned apologetically, dropping a kiss to her hair, but went away obediently enough.

"Huh," said Sophie, surprised.

"He's not at his best, is he?" commented Calcifer with a snap of wood.

"Not really," Sophie agreed, looking at the door to the stairs thoughtfully.

Howl was a snoring lump under the bedclothes when Sophie went upstairs later. In the light from the lamp, the window to Wales still looked shifty. Sophie pulled a curtain over it, and went to bed.

 

  
**In Which Howl Undertakes Some Home Improvement**   


Thursday morning, Sophie woke up by herself again. She would have been more surprised by this if Howl hadn't dozed off so early the previous night, but she did wonder if this was becoming a trend. She rather missed the opportunity to snuggle in against his warm skin for a bit before starting her day. It was really one of the more pleasant aspects of married life.

She could hear the castle already awake and active. The ominous clanging and crashing of metal emanating from below hurried her out of bed to save her kitchen.

When she got downstairs, Howl was standing over the fire grate with a manic gleam in his eye as he flipped pancakes.

"Good morning, Sophie," he sang out, turning towards her as she came down the steps, brandishing a spatula.

"Uh. Hello, Howl," she replied uncertainly. "You're up early."

"Well, you know," he beamed, "it's a beautiful day and the sun is shining and the birds are singing and there's so much to do!" He tossed a misshapen pancake upward and Calcifer snapped it out of midair, lighting into it with apparent relish.

"You have another meeting with the King today, then?" Sophie tried.

"Nope!" he announced. "I'm planning to stay home and get started on the upstairs bathroom."

"O…kay." She blinked. "How many cups of coffee have you had this morning?" She shifted her accusing gaze to Calcifer. "How many cups of coffee did you let him have?"

"Me?" Calcifer protested. "Not a one! Besides, it wasn't my turn to watch him."

"It is *always* your turn to watch him," Sophie corrected under her breath. Howl ignored her and Calcifer stuck his purple tongue out in her direction.

Howl flipped a pancake and slid it onto a plate already occupied by another pancake and several pieces of bacon. He presented this to Sophie with a flourish and a kiss to her hand. "Your breakfast, my dear." She laughed and batted him away so she could eat.

"So," she said, swallowing a bite of pancake drizzled with syrup, "You're working on putting a bathroom upstairs? I thought that scale of project would require a lot of planning and magical preparation."

"Well, yes," Howl said with the air of someone whose logic is unimpeachable, "so the sooner I get started, the sooner it will be finished! I figure I’ll need the practice when we start wanting to... expand the space a bit.”

“Ah,” Sophie said, not without concern. "You’re also going to fix my fertilizer bucket for me, right?"

"Of course," he assured her. "I'm doing nothing but home improvement today."

Sophie watched with a hint of trepidation as he flipped another pancake in the air. It landed on the stove and started to smolder.

*** 

By mid-morning, it became apparent that Market Chipping was deep in the grips of a bout of the flu. Customer after customer came through and entirely bypassed the flowers on display to ask, with varying levels of pathos, if she had anything to help with aches or stop a running nose. She was starting to worry she would run out of her usual supply of fever-reducing tinctures  
and throat-coating cough-drops and her flowers were sitting mostly unloved and unappreciated. Every once in a while a crash or a minor explosion resounded from the depths of the castle. The first few times this was immediately followed by Howl, or occasionally Calcifer, calling “Sorry! Nothing major!”, but after a while they stopped bothering and Sophie just shut the door between the castle and the shop and ignored the muffled bangings and clangings that continued throughout the morning. Once, a low hum rumbled through the floor as if the castle was changing shape, though nothing had noticeably moved when Sophie went outside to check.

Just before lunch, Martha came in, all a-twitter.

“Sophie!” she exclaimed, stripping off her gloves to run a hand over her red nose. “Any chance I can steal you for a bit? There’s something wrong with the sinks at Cesari’s and the plumber is down with a fever. I was hoping you could come talk some sense into the pipes in time for the lunchtime rush...”

Sophie winced sympathetically. “Oh, dear. Yes, I’d be happy to help.” She took off her apron and stuck her head through the door to the castle. “Michael!” she called. “Come watch the store while I duck out for a bit.”

There was a vague affirmative from within, so Sophie pulled on her coat and a hat and followed Martha out into the chilly street.

“The drains are all backing up,” Martha explained as they headed down the street towards Market Square. “They started this morning and have only gotten worse. Mrs. Cesari is beside herself.”

When they reached Cesari’s, Sophie could quite see why. Out front, everything looked fine, but when Martha led her into the back, every surface in the kitchen was covered in dirty dishes. In the middle of the room stood Mrs. Cesari, pointing a wooden spoon imperiously at an apprentice and clearly at her wit’s end.

“Sophie!” Mrs. Cesari moaned upon seeing them. “I cannot cook without sinks!”

“Of course not,” Sophie consoled.

“She’ll get them straightened right out,” soothed Martha, steering Mrs. Cesari to sit down on a stool.

Sophie advanced on the biggest sink. It was the size of the workbench in the castle, and had a pile of baking trays soaking forlornly in dirty, chilled water. She surveyed it for a moment, hands on hips.

“What’s this, then?” she demanded. “You should be ashamed of yourself, refusing to drain properly!” The water bubbled half-heartedly but didn’t go anywhere. “Really now.” She sighed and looked underneath the sink at the network of pipes leading into the wall.

“Are all the sinks broken?” she asked, straightening.

“No,” answered the apprentice who had been cowering away from Mrs. Cesari. “Just the ones in here.” He gestured down the row of sinks lining the wall, all of which were full of murky water.

“Hm,” said Sophie, leaning back down. She tapped the largest pipe, the one which went under all the sinks and then led away through the wall. “Pipe, you should not be clogged. You know better than that. Stop that at once!”

The pipe shuddered for a moment, and then with a loud glug-glug-glug the water began to bubble and sink away.

Martha let out a sigh of relief. “See?” she said to Mrs. Cesari. “All better!”

*** 

Sophie headed back to the shop with a well-laden cake box pressed onto her by a grateful Mrs. Cesari. Martha had given her a big hug and apologized for needing to stay and work the lunch rush. She bent her head against the winter chill, glad she was only two streets from home.

She went in through the main castle door, as it was slightly closer than the storefront and the wind was bitter. She shed her coat, setting the cake box off on the workbench, and started through the entry to the shop, only to stop, surprised. Mrs. Fairfax was standing with Michael and a hovering Calcifer was chatting animatedly away.

"All I knew was that she went upstairs with a broom and that dangerous look in her eyes-- you know the look."

"*I* know the look." Michael mourned.

"And so Howl went racing up the stairs like the hounds of the damned were behind him. And then, you would not BELIEVE the racket from upstairs--"

"I don't need to hear this," complained Michael.

"Ignore him, dear," Mrs. Fairfax patted Michael's shoulder and he slumped. "Keep going with your story." She extended a cookie to Calcifer.

Michael looked betrayed.

Calcifer snatched up the treat and gobbled it happily. "Right, so I was saying-"

"Ahem," Sophie cleared her throat. All three straightened guiltily. "Don't mind me, I just thought I would go back to tending my shop."

Michael slunk back to work, not looking at her, and focused very hard on the herbs he was chopping. Calcifer attempted to whistle innocently, but it came out a bit more like ominous hissing. Mrs. Fairfax smiled at Sophie.

"Sophie, my dear, I was just stopping by to leave a little something for you and your Howl." She extended a basket.

"Thank you, Mrs. Fairfax," Sophie said politely and accepted it, peeking inside to see several jars of honey flanked by a row of cookies.

“I thought you might be getting low,” Mrs. Fairfax continued.

Sophie was about to reply when there was a crash, followed by a rattle, and Howl’s voice, a magically-amplified shout, rolled through the room.

“CALCIFER!” he yelled. “I need you! Quickly!”

“Blast,” muttered Calcifer, and he dove through the door into the castle.

“Er,” said Mrs. Fairfax, edging toward the door. “That sounded rather... ominous, didn’t it?”

Sophie shook her head, smiling. “Oh no, that’s positively calm for Howl’s idea of home improvement.”

There was another crash from somewhere behind the building.

“Still,” said Mrs. Fairfax, “I should be going. I’ve errands, and you’ve a business to run.”

“Thank you for the cookies!” Sophie called after her back as she hurried out of the shop. “Have a nice day!”

*** 

Howl was on his way out to the yard, presumably for more parts, when Sophie came out of the bathroom. Hours had passed without seeing hide nor hair of him except for sounds from beyond the wall. Sophie was feeling rather frazzled. She was certain her shop had changed shape again, all the more troublesome for her not being able to see the difference.

"Howl,” Sophie reminded him none-too-gently, “my fertilizer bucket!"

Howl jumped. He looked guilty, then irritated.

Sophie sighed. "You're turning me into a nagging wife!"

Howl retorted, "You were a nagging wife before we were married!”

Sophie couldn’t help but laugh, as it wasn’t untrue. Howl grinned back at her, tension broken.

“Don’t start that - you knew what I was like when you asked me to marry you, you’ve no one but yourself to blame,” she said, mock-tart.

“I did at that,” murmured Howl, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head as she passed him. “It’s my own fault, really.”

“And don’t you forget it!” She winked, feeling altogether better, and went back to work.

*** 

Dinner that evening was even more haphazard than usual. Sophie kept the shop open late because she felt bad turning away people who needed flu antidotes, so she munched on a pastry from Cesari’s and ate the plate of cheese and salami Michael brought her. Calcifer was too busy helping Howl renovate, or possibly destroy, their second floor to bother with cooking, and as for Howl, he would have forgotten to eat if Michael had not brought food to him as well. Michael said as much when he came to collect her plate.

“Don’t you go getting sick on us - without you we’d starve,” she teased him as he brought her another hot mug of tea.

“Pretty much!” Michael agreed cheerily and ducked back into the castle.

“What about you?” Victoria Monday asked around a wad of tissues she had pressed to her nose. “You’re not going to go catching this blasted flu, are you?” Sophie saw it as a sign of breeding, or terribly out-of-place etiquette lessons, that anyone could enunciate that well through a stuffed nose.

Sophie shrugged practically and handed over a neatly-tied package. “I can’t get sick - I need to take care of you lot.”

“And don’t think we don’t appreciate it!” called Victoria Monday as she ventured back into the cold and gathering dusk.

Sophie pulled her shawl tighter against the chill from outside and sighed.

*** 

By the time Sophie finally closed up the shop, well after dark, Howl was already fast asleep. She sat on the edge of their bed for a long moment, watching his shoulders rise and fall, and then crawled in beside him.

He didn’t wake up even when she stuck her icy toes behind his knee. Usually Howl hated that.

She sighed and cuddled up against him to get warm until she finally drifted to sleep.

 

  
**In Which A Royal Wizard Is A Royal Pain**   


Once again Howl was not beside Sophie when she woke up on Friday.

“Hrmph,” she said. “Grump. Nar.”

She continued to be in a bit of a mood even though when she got downstairs she found Howl had left her a covered plate of eggs to stay warm by the fire.

“Hm,” she said, but ate them.

When she dug out her gardening tools (now hung neatly on the wall, which struck Sophie as much stranger than inhabiting the seven-league boots), the fertilizer bucket was still empty.

“Hrrumph,” she said, and left it behind, handle wagging forlornly.

She didn’t even bother gathering as many flowers as usual, bypassed the roses and irises for more practical flu-soothers like comfrey and coneflower, and got down to the business of grumpily chopping herbs and mixing tinctures. She drew Michael in to put aside his assignments in favor of crushing flax seeds in a mortar at the big work table in the shop.

*** 

Sophie was tying yet another poultice together when Howl blew himself up. The crash was loud enough that Sophie heard it even from the shop, followed by two explosive BOOMs that shook the foundation of the whole building. Sophie had dropped the twine she was tying and bolted for the door to the castle before she had consciously decided to move.

She crossed the main room at a run, Michael on her heels, and threw open the door to the yard to find Calcifer hovering over Howl's prone form. Heart in her mouth, she was at his side in a moment. He blinked at her, and she felt relief rush through her veins.

"Ouch," said Howl vaguely.

"Howl!" she exclaimed. "Are you okay?" Her hands, without her instruction, were running over his torso and arms. He smelled singed, but felt intact.

"That… hurt," he said thoughtfully, putting a hand to his head and trying to sit up. He failed.

Taking a deep breath once she saw he was, in fact, relatively unharmed, Sophie ran her hands over his head. He winced as she found a lump. "What did you do?"

He gingerly tried sitting up again, this time with somewhat more success. "I had a little mishap."

"You don't say," snapped Calcifer, hovering close enough to sizzle their hair. His cranky tone was offset by the way he was cobalt blue with worry.

Sophie rubbed Howl's back and helped him sit up. When she touched his forehead she pulled back. "Howl, you're burning up!" she accused.

"Hm?" Howl responded. "Oh. Yeah. That."

"'That'?" echoed Michael with disbelief.

Howl flapped a hand dismissively. "Just a bit of a fever."

Sophie leaned back on her heels, looking outraged. "A fever? You were messing around with powerful magic with a FEVER?"

Howl shrugged.

“How long?” she demanded. “You didn’t just catch this - it’s been going on for a while, hasn’t it? And you **didn’t tell us**?”

Howl looked shifty, but she didn’t give him a chance to say anything.

“Michael, go put the kettle on,” Sophie ordered curtly. Michael did as told with alacrity. “We are getting YOU into bed.” She frowned at Howl. “Can you stand? Walk?”

“Um?” Howl hazarded.

“I’ll help with that,” Calcifer interjected. “Since he’s pushed his puny mortal self to the limits, **again**.”

“Thank you,” Sophie said to Calcifer, and got Howl standing and moving toward the stairs.

Calcifer hovered along, fizzing with anxiety.

Sophie bundled Howl upstairs and into their room. Calcifer continued to hover as she grumblingly stripped Howl’s suit off and pushed him ever-so-gently into bed. He had given up protesting and let her manhandle him between the sheets and pull a pile of blankets over him. This was clearly the most disturbing aspect to both Sophie and Calcifer.

Once they had him well-settled, she banished Michael back to run the shop. Calcifer went to go check what kind of mess Howl had left with that last explosion.

Sophie sat down on the coverlet beside Howl and stroked his hair soothingly. “You’re going to stay here, right? No more haring off madly on projects until you’re well again?”

“Yes Sophie,” Howl muttered. “No, Sophie. I’ll be good.”

“Good,” she said, and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Now go to sleep, and get better.”

“You’ll be a great mother,” he murmured vaguely, eyes glassy with fever and reminding her of how they’d been back when Calcifer had his heart.

“You’ll be a wretched father, if you don’t learn to take care of yourself,” Sophie retorted, and Howl smiled.

“I’ll work on that,” he promised, already sliding towards sleep.

“You do that,” Sophie said, petting his fringe away from his face. “You’d better.” But her tone was more gentle than threatening.

 

  
**In Which They All Live Happily Ever After In a Little Castle In Ingary**   


Sophie woke up on Saturday to a mouthful of hair. Howl's arm was thrown across her stomach and he was breathing noisily against her collarbone. She smiled to herself and took a long moment to enjoy him having in her arms before she set about to face the day.  


THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally could not have done this without joyfulseeker. She was amazingly patient and stern all the way through, and wouldn't let me get away with a bit of laziness. All the best bits of this are her fault, and any mistakes are in spite of her best efforts. Thank you so, so, so much. Thanks also to rosa_acicularis, whose invaluable insights at the eleventh hour were, you know, invaluable.
> 
> And thank you butterflysteve! I'm so glad to have gotten to write for you and to play in such a fun world with such great characters. I hope your Yuletide experience was everything you hoped for!


End file.
